in70mm.com Mission:
• To record the history of the large format movies and the 70mm cinemas
as remembered by the people who worked with the films. Both during
making and during running the films in projection rooms and as the
audience, looking at the curved screen.•
in70mm.com, a unique internet based magazine, with articles about 70mm
cinemas, 70mm people, 70mm films, 70mm sound, 70mm film credits, 70mm
history and 70mm technology. Readers and fans of 70mm are always welcome
to contribute.

Takuo Miyagishima

Sir Sydney: Yes, Tak was an example of that - and he was Bob’s Chief
Engineer. And the story I wanted to tell you was that Bob, who fell in love
with anything Japanese – and I don’t know if you read my original notes, but
I said that once I had to take issue with him. I said, “I don’t know if you
know anything, Bob, about building a railway through Burma under the
auspices of the Japanese Army if you were a British prisoner of war...where
you were not only in that climate without any care or medication, but you
were starving as well – you don’t know about that”. And he said, “I don’t
think it was as bad as you say” [Laughs], and I remember thinking, “You
don’t know, Bob, you simply don’t know”.

There’s a BAFTA colleague of mine who was the director of a series on
television called "Fawlty Towers". It’s classic comedy –
British-style comedy. Well, the director I think of the first eleven – no,
the producer of the first eleven – is the name of a chap who was on the
BAFTA Council – that’s how I knew him – and he always used to arrive at the
Council meetings on time, or sometimes early. And if I got there early, I
always used to enjoy chatting to him, really nice guy. And I once said to
him, “You’re one of those people who’s always got a kind of smile on your
face...I never see you looking cross, I never see you looking angry.” And he
said. “Well, there’s a simple answer to that...I was in the British Army; I
was captured in Singapore, and I was a prisoner on the Burma railway for
three years. After that; having survived that; everything in life is
absolutely bloody marvellous!” [Chuckles] ...That was his philosophy.

Anyway, going back to Bob Gottschalk, and the Japanese – he was so enamoured
with them, that they were so reliable – that they were so conscientious –
they didn’t arrive for work late, or anything like that – they studied –
further education – even though they were doing a job at Panavision, they
would get that extra qualification in their own time – which was just
marvellous as far as employers were concerned. The day came when Bob needed
two more people in the drawing office...so he put an advert in the local
paper – “Engineering staff vacancies”, or “Engineering staff wanted” –
whatever the paper was in Los Angeles where you could, once a week,
advertise within the engineering industry. Bob advertised he wanted two
Japanese mechanical draughtsmen. And he must have telexed it to the
newspaper [Chuckles] - the small advertisement - the text – and he got a
phone call from the person in the newspaper – probably The Los Angeles
Times, in the office that handled the “Staff Wanted” page – and she
apparently said, “I’m afraid by law you’re not allowed to specify the
nationality or the ethnic background”. So Bob didn’t get beaten by what to
him would have been a stupid law: he then changed his advertisement to read,
“Wanted: Two mechanical draughtsmen, able to speak Japanese” [Laughter]

Because you know, if you’re not Japanese, not from a Japanese family, it’s
very unusual if you can speak Japanese! [Laughs] So that’s how he got his
two Japanese / American draughtsmen...and Tak was just fantastic – as a
draughtsman, as an engineer / designer and as a person.

Robert Gottschalk

When Bob got his first Oscar, his first
Technical Oscar, it was – I don’t mean an Oscar that a Cinematographer using
Panavision received, of which I think
Freddie Young for
"Lawrence" maybe was the first one – 65mm as it happens, I mean when
Panavision got an Oscar for its technical contribution to the art of
Cinematography. I can’t remember what the whole Citation was, but anyway
Panavision got its own Oscar, and the Citation, after the first bit of
wording, said, “To Robert Gottschalk, Chief Executive” – only Bob’s name.
And I said, “Isn’t that amazing, it’s just lovely...and it’s all been done
by one man!” [Laughs] You must admit, I’ve got nerve...I knew him well
enough – “It’s all been done by one man”. And he knew exactly what I was
getting at, because he was rather self-centred...so brilliant, but so
selfish – he would have probably insisted that it was to record just his
name. A technical award, you know beforehand it’s being considered, and he
would have known someone in that department at the Academy, and he would
have made it clear that he was Panavision. Which he was – however, in the
case of an Oscar for engineering innovation and general excellence I thought
that Tak’s name ought also to be there. And do you know, I think it got
changed...how, I don’t know. I’d no idea whether Bob had second thoughts
about it, I don’t know whether anybody complained – I don’t think Tak would
have said a word – but somebody else might have said, “Bob, don’t you think
that Tak, and Jack Barber [who was the guy that ran the workshop] – don’t
you think their contribution to the design skills that made Panavision – or
helped you to make Panavision what it became – don’t you think, on a
Technical Oscar, [Technical Achievement I think they’re called] shouldn’t
their names have been mentioned?” Or I might have said to Bob, “I’m
disappointed that the Academy didn’t mention anybody else having made a
contribution”.

I’m telling you all that because Tak was a major part of what Panavision
stood for, what they achieved. And he seemed to be not just in the optics,
the mechanics, he seemed to know about everything. He was the Chief, and he
had his board, his drawing board in his office, and he played a very major
part in what Panavision became. I would say he probably had nothing to do
with the business side of it – he couldn’t care less about how much a 100mm
Super Panavision lens rented for, he wouldn’t care about that. But a lot of
the cameramen knew him very well, and they would go and talk to him if they
wanted something special made, like I’m pleased to say people used to come
and talk to us in London.

A 20:1 Zoom

The way of things was, they would first talk
to me, and then I would say to them, “Well let’s go and talk to Bill
Woodhouse, our Optics Chief” – he was affectionately known as “Bill the
Lens”...that’s a sort of London kind of semi-Cockney way of describing
someone. Anyway, Bill was I think an untrained optical expert – for all I
know he went to Night School, and learned about optics – but he was just
brilliant – and he, and Joe Dunton, who was on our staff at that time – they
brought up the first 20:1 zoom lens – 20:1 – that would cover a 35mm frame.
How they did it was they took an existing Angénieux 20:1 zoom lens designed
to cover a 16mm frame, and in effect added – what’s it called, it’s like an
extra lens?

TH: An extender?

Sir Sydney: No, it’s not an extender...if you want to do a big close-up, you

put such a lens on the front, which enables you to focus right down close –

TH: I have a macro lens at home –

Sir Sydney: Yes, same item I’m sure –

TH: I can actually make a stamp be larger on the negative than it really is,
because it magnifies – it focuses down to 2 inches –

Sir Sydney: There’s a name – Diopter – that’s it – they fitted a diopter,
which they’d had to have specially made, to a certain optical formula. The
new 20:1 zoom lens had its limitations because putting on the diopter
reduced the speed of the lens by 2 stops. I think it started off at 5.6 – so
it became maximum aperture: f11. Well not for every shot you want to do have
you got a enough light to shoot at f11, nevertheless you could happily do
most exteriors, and I remember Dickie Attenborough was shooting a film with
an American director, and it was about a ghastly murderer – a real life
story – the murderer’s name was Christie, and he lived in a terraced house –

TH: "10 Rillington Place"

Sir Sydney: Yes! My goodness, fantastic that you would remember that –
because it wasn’t a big film – "10 Rillington Place" was the address
of the house where they found the first body hidden behind a panel, and the
police started investigating – I think in that house they found about five
bodies. And, the owner of the house, who had mental difficulties, was
arrested, tried, convicted and hanged for the murder of some other people,
tenants, I think two of them were prostitutes. These bodies that had been
found had been murdered several years earlier. And the murderer was this
multi-killer Christie, who was also a tenant in the house.

Anyway, what’s that got to do with the Angénieux 20:1 lens you’re asking
yourself? [Chuckles] I was talking to Dickie, and he was telling me about
this film, and the technical difficulty, because Dickie had hair that time.
As for Christie, part of his persona was that he was completely bald – he
was a bald-headed, ugly man, with horn-rimmed glasses - so Dickie had to be
made up to look like Christie, not to look at all like lovable Richard
Attenborough! So he had to wear what they call a “bald” wig. And although
you couldn’t see the join, I think he spent 3 or 4 hours in make-up each
morning, while they fitted his wig – covered the join. There were scenes
where Dickie had to show emotion, went red in the face, but the bald part
didn’t go red! [Laughs] Which was a major problem. So Dickie had to shoot
emotional scenes – without being emotional! Somehow, he had to be mentally
laughing it off, whatever he was shouting and screaming about, because his
head changed colour if he let go, showed all the temper such scenes
required.

Oh yes, the other thing was, and a true story, Christie disappeared. The
police couldn’t find him – they knew he had done all the murders – I can’t
remember the timeframe from the crimes, but the innocent owner of the house
had been hanged, and then they found a couple more bodies somewhere else.
They knew who the murderer was – but where was he? Eventually he was
arrested, this is in real life, on Putney Bridge. He was standing, looking
into the River Thames, leaning on the balustrade at the side, there was this
bald-headed figure, the police found him. And the shot the director
imagined, when we told him, “We’ve got a 20:1 zoom, a 20 to 400mm – ”

Anyway, they did a great wide angle shot of Putney Bridge...and the houses
all around, and the river – and there was a little tiny speck of a human
being leaning over the side of the wall...and they did a 20:1 zoom in, and
there was Christie at the end of it. So that was the first 20:1 feature film
shot that we can claim! Probably a bit of useless information for you, but
that was part of the kind of thing we did, and we did it because, as I’ve
said many times – when people have said, “Well, how did you come to build up
that marvellous business?” I used to say, “Because what I’m good at is
finding and choosing people”. And that’s really, absolutely true – I
couldn’t just on my own have thought out a 20:1 zoom lens! Even an f11
maximum aperture lens – but it was a 20:1 zoom that didn’t exist before
Samuelson’s. I had all these marvellous people on staff who together made
such things happen.